It wasn’t just the Japanese who dodged the bullet at the weekend meeting of finance ministers and central bankers from the Group of 20 industrialized and developing countries. The British did too.

In the financial markets, speculation ahead of the Moscow G-20 meeting centered on whether it would criticize Japan for manipulating its currency downwards to boost its exports. In the event, it didn’t. And the sighs of relief were probably as loud in London as they were in Tokyo.

For while the Japanese have been the principle target for criticism, the Bank of England has been almost as open about its wish for a weaker currency. Only this weekend, in a speech at the Warwick Economics Summit, the academic Martin Weale came close to admitting it.

As part of a discussion about the U.K.’s external accounts, Mr. Weale, an external member of the Bank of England’s monetary policy committee, said that “the final, and perhaps most natural, means of resolving the problem is for the nominal exchange rate to fall.”

The first consequence of such a fall would be a further rise in inflation, he admitted. But he then referred to an MPC statement that it was appropriate to look through a temporary, albeit protracted, period of above-target inflation, adding: “I certainly see that there would be a strong case for treating the effects of any further depreciation similar to that experienced in the last few weeks in the same way.”

The world must learn to produce food in a more efficient, sustainable way, according to Marc Sadler, team leader of The World Bank’s Agricultural Finance and Risk Management Team.

Mr. Sadler told The Source:

“This comes from reducing waste and storage losses. In a world of finite resources we need to be more efficient, and to get these goals we need to invest more. The more resources that we put into food, the more we will get [out].

“This is a global reality–not only is the population increasing, but we are also seeing changing consumer patterns. It’s obvious that a lot of these changes are linked to higher income and the higher consumption of protein.”
The big challenge, he said, “is to help farmers in the developing world have opportunities to become part of the global situation.”

Agriculture officials meeting to discuss food security at the Group of 20 Industrialized and Developing Nations (G-20) summit say the answer to world hunger lies in increasing international collaboration and farmer training, particularly among small producers, to increase world agricultural productivity, otherwise there won’t be enough food for everyone in the future.

Among the myriad bilateral relationships within the G-20, the club of the world’s most influential developed and developing economies, perhaps none is as fractious as the one between the U.K. and Argentina. And it appears U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron is in no mood for rapprochement.

Fresh from marking the 30th anniversary last week of the day British forces wrested back the Falkland Islands after a brief but bloody conflict with Argentina, Mr. Cameron has held up the South American country as an example of the lurch to protectionism, which he says is one of the main threats to the global economy.

Starting with a reference to Argentina’s controversial seizure of oil company YPF in April from Spain’s Repsol YPF in April, Mr. Cameron singled out the country in a speech on the margins of a two-day summit of G-20 leaders in the Mexican resort of Los Cabos.

Instead, the two-day summit ended Friday with precious little to show. No G-20 country committed itself to investing in the European Financial Stability Facility, the euro-zone bailout fund. The nations only resolved to continue talking about providing additional firepower through the International Monetary Fund.

Meantime, Greece’s political maelstrom swirled, shaking up the summit’s agenda. Friday afternoon, Prime Minister George Papandreou was holding on to his office by a thread ahead of a midnight no-confidence vote.

Greece’s leadership struggled to restore political stability to the country and safeguard its membership in the euro zone, as global powers gathered in France looked for ways to halt the spiraling European debt crisis.

Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou on Thursday agreed to shelve a controversial plan for a referendum on Athens’s latest financial bailout. The turnabout followed a tumultuous few days that thrust Greece to the brink of political chaos, forcing euro-zone leaders to contemplate the possibility that Greece would exit from the single currency.

Leaders of the Group of 20 industrial and developing nations, meeting in Cannes, France, debated how to shore up the wider euro currency zone—a major part of the global economy—against the financial chaos unleashed by the Greek turmoil.

Hello, and welcome back to our live coverage of the Group of 20 summit and the ongoing euro-zone debt crisis.

This morning, Greek Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos (pictured) has come out against embattled Prime Minister George Papandreou's plan for a referendum on whether the debt-hit country should stay in the euro.

"Greece's place in the euro is a historical conquest by the Greek people that cannot be placed in question...this cannot be made dependent on a referendum," he said in a statement after returning from Cannes.

The statement deals another blow to Mr. Papandreou, who is facing a growing revolt within his Socialist party over the referendum plans and is facing a vote of confidence in Parliament Friday.

For French President Nicolas Sarkozy, the summit of global leaders in Cannes on Thursday and Friday was to be the crowning glory of his presidency of the Group of 20 industrial and developing nations.

Mr. Sarkozy was ambitious in what he wanted the G-20 to achieve under his leadership: make real progress in reforming the international monetary system, clamp down on speculation in commodity markets, push for a tax on financial transactions, try to nudge China somehow towards some sort of greater convertibility for the yuan.

Greece has torpedoed it all.

To be sure, Mr. Sarkozy, along with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, IMF chief Christine Lagarde and others will try to pull a Greek rabbit out of a hat when they hold a crisis meeting with George Papandreou tonight in Cannes and tell him that Greece must answer a simple and direct question: Does it see its future inside or outside the euro zone?

The latest Greek government crisis has overshadowed the agenda for a summit of world leaders this week.

The Group of 20 industrial and developing economies, meeting in Cannes, France, had hoped to focus much of its attention on the rest of the euro zone, including implementation of last week’s European plan to support the currency bloc and on broader global concerns about exchange rates and financial regulation. Instead, they may be back to square one.

Leaders from the Group of 20 industrialized and emerging economies may be gearing up for their trip to Cannes this week but, in the currency markets at least, there’s little sign of the sort of international co-operation such get-togethers are meant to foster.

Bloomberg

Rather, scattered skirmishes proliferate across the foreign exchange front lines and all the major currencies are embroiled.

The central banks of both Switzerland and Japan have intervened heavily and unilaterally in the markets this year, in efforts to shoo investors out of their soaring “safe-haven” currencies, whose strength was crippling the home economy.

Japan was at it again, in force, just this week.

The U.K., meanwhile, opted last month to start printing sterling again with a second program of quantitative easing. In Washington the chances of a third are being mulled. Moreover a controversial bill to slap tariffs on countries with “undervalued currencies” has Senate approval, despite dark warnings from China that its passage into law would mean trade war.

With European Union leaders heading from one pivotal summit to another, intense negotiations are underway to hammer out details on a plan to stem the euro debt crisis, including a sweeping recapitalization of European banks, a bigger bailout fund and a substantial restructuring of Greece’s debt. EU and euro-zone leaders are meeting again on Wednesday to finalize a deal after laying out the foundations for a bank recapitalization plan and leveraging of the European Financial Stability Facility at meetings Sunday.

Pressure is mounting on euro-zone leaders to deliver a convincing plan before G-20 leaders meet Nov. 3-4. The situation is fluid due to the complex nature of negotiations, meaning timetables are still be susceptible to change. EU finance ministers are likely to meet ahead of the summit, while the German Parliament has also scheduled a critical debate for Wednesday to approve any changes to the EFSF’s role. There are now two options for the EFSF on the table, which could be combined. One is an insurance plan that foresees the fund’s setting aside a pool of money that could be used to offset part of any losses suffered by purchasers of the debt of weak countries, such as Italy. The other would be to create a special, separate fund, which would raise money from private investors and others, like sovereign-wealth funds, to buy debt of weak countries. The EFSF would also participate in the fund–but would suffer the first losses. The scale of write-downs on Greek debt as part of a second bailout agreement for the country are also still being finalized. The range of a write-down under discussion is between 40% and 60%, with Germany at the high end and France at the low.